Since their time spent contemplating teen romance around Dawson’s Creek, the careers of the series' stars – James Van Der Beek, Katie Holmes, Michelle Williams and Joshua Jackson – have diverged wildly, ranging from Oscar-nominated film roles to TV gigs. Van Der Beek has seen patchy pickings, but things are definitely looking up now he's scored a role in Jason Reitman’s Labor Day.
Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin are already aboard to star as a divorced mother and the stranger she and her teenage son help out during the titular US holiday weekend. It turns out that Brolin is actually an escaped convict who nevertheless teaches both mother and son a thing or two. The Hollywood Reporter has it that Van Der Beek is on board to play a police officer.
The actor, who’s never been afraid to spoof his own image and his history as Dawson, is currently appearing in US sitcom Don’t Trust The B– In Apartment 23 as himself. He also worked with Reitman on last year’s Live Reads event that saw a cast perform the script of The Breakfast Club to an appreciative audience.
Variety, meanwhile, reports that youngster Gattlin Griffith has won the role of Winslet’s spawn, with Gamer** actress Brighid Fleming close to a deal to play the object of his attention. Tom Lipinski and Maika Monroe have previously been announced as playing a younger Brolin and the woman he marries in a flashback to his earlier days.
Reitman adapted the script from Joyce Maynard’s novel and is gearing up to direct this summer.